WNET Loses Major Donor’s Support After Critical Documentary

An article in The New Yorker chronicles the unsuccessful efforts of New York public-television affiliate WNET to placate its billionaire supporter, David Koch, as it prepared to broadcast a documentary that criticized him. Mr. Koch, a WNET board member and multimillion-dollar donor to public television, was featured in “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream,” a film about income inequity that aired on PBS last fall. Mr. Koch, co-owner of Koch Industries, quit the organization’s board this month and reportedly backed away from making an expected seven-figure gift for the station’s capital campaign.